@dbp

I think it's just the perception of reality: we all know that Hobbitses (hehe) aren't real, so why are we trying to make them look real? There almost has to be a disconnect so that we have to suspend our belief briefly.

Not sure if that makes sense, but yeah.

I guess we'll see when it's here! Not too far away.

I definitely will watch it at least three times, 1. 24p 2. 48p 3. 48P 3D

@jrd on the topic of tools -- yes. We were kind of already there when you had the DVX100, it got better with the HVX200, and the day that the DSLR could do 24P it was a done deal. The rest of this stuff is just for hobby/interest, at least for me.

I knew you could do competitive work with a 35mm Adapter, it's just easier now.

@dbp

Higher Frame Rates for games and CGi movies = Yes please.

But, as an avid gamer and consumer locust, no way for motion picture, or narrative content. I'll wager money on that, and part of the reason is that there is still a very strong distinction between what is considered reality in media and what is considered narrative fiction.

As in, there are still a lot of reality shows, and then you have movies which look like movies. When they both start looking the same (just one looks more like a History Channel re-enactment) then there will be blood.

We'll know more after The Hobbit screens 48FPS 2D (not 3D). xxDDDDDD

@jrd Look at image quality in video games if you do not find the evidence in films (as represent an even larger financial market for kids these days). Games drove a surprising number of higher resolution displays (computer and television) and the correlation between increasing graphic quality and the widespread acceptance of gaming initially (beyond the "solitaire market") was unmistakeable. Final Fantasy VII (released in the U.S. in 1997) spent several times as much on CG cut scenes as Final Fantasy VI had just a few years before (and the project cost close to the estimated budget for the first part of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy).

New games are talked about in the gaming magazines based upon their graphics engines, even to the mass market crowds reading things like store mag at EB Games. Gamers often test their graphics cards in engines the way that we might compare cameras. And outside the recent indie market, poor graphics tend to be one of the first thing that gamers or reviewers will complain about (in close proximity to poor controls). The visual budgets are several times what the other departments get.

If increasing visual quality were not such a concern to the young market, developers would not be spending ca. $14 million dollars a game on the average triple A HD game. Yes, there is an indie market growing - which also looks many times better than the indie market 10 years ago and is ALsO often HD except on mobiles (which look several times better than they did several years ago...)

Even Nintendo has been moving towards HD and they were one of the last holdouts.

Marketing or not, kids care about visual quality a lot. The gaming magazines targeted a pre-teen to tenn demographic in the mid 90s were already often providing glossaries of 3d cg terms (phong vs gorouad shading, mip-mapping, etc.) and the annual gaming guides were keeping track of things like the maximum color range each system could display (which is why I can tell you from memory that the SNES could display more colors and choose from a wider palaette than the Sega Genesis). Up until recently, polygon performance was a big measure of sytem performance (from the 90s on).

Enoguh ranting: back to video. People may choose convenience over delivery format quality, but they seem to care more about production format quality. What are they watching on the formats you mentioned? When it is not reality subjects (which is a lot of YouTube and a different category) they tend to prefer things with higher production values. They can only watch The Blair Witch Project times. :)

Oh and the next time you think kids do not care, try getting them to watch the 90s versions of their favorite superhero show and see how long they go without commenting on the abimation (which was usually lower frame rate, etc.)

@thepalalias

Maybe we'd be better of if it were otherwise, but in the ultra-low budget feature realm, there's no correlation between format and production value, and marketplace acceptance. The biggest hits of the last 15 years were shot on consumer hi8, DV and first generation pro-sumer HD, with cheap production values in all cases. This at a time when far better formats were readily accessible, without enormous increases in budget.

I honestly don't know what kids expect today, but being willing to watch a movie on the web or a telephone doesn't suggest high standards....

In demanding better image quality, I think you're the exception.

@jrd I disagree. When I was a 8 years old, my parents could look past poor image quality but I was a very tough sell. A film had to be very old (black and white through Music Man) or recent (80s 35mm or newer, preferabbly Hollywood) for me not to be distracted. I commented on it immeadiately (within the first 60 seconds of footage) and would sometimes walk out of the room while my parents kept watching a foreign film that had poor image quality because of a lower production budget (though I might well have stayed now).

That was when I was a kid. Kids today are exposed to a higher image quality on a regular basis in everything from TV shows to music videos, etc. and sometimes even on the web than the 8 or16mm work that used to distract me. When I saw the preview for Clerks 1 (for example) my older step brother could not get me interested in it, even though the humor was a good fit for us, because I disliked the look so much as a kid. In college I went back and checked it out.

In other words, if you expose a kid too a lot of something technically better (image, sound, graphics, etc.) they will notice the difference for the most part and react to it. As adults, we may pick and choose or analyze and retrain but as kids the reaction can be a lot more direct.

Good image quality is what gives you the chance to tell your story to a wider audience. Without it, a lot of people (especially young people) will be difficult to convince to give it a chance. Just my 2 cents.

Even the half/snobbish guy in front of Ping ... made the point that people can no longer make the excuse that they don't have the right equipment to create worthy projects because they don't have access to high-end gear.

What that actually means is, now would-be filmmakers will discover the real excuses (and good ones!) for why they can't create "worthy projects": no resources for great writing, no resources for great acting, no resources for professional lighting, no resources for credible locations, and on it goes....

Camera performance has always been the least crucial item on that list. General audiences simply don't notice the differences, or care much when they do notice. And in the realm of ultra-low budget filmmaking, audiences aren't necessarily looking for or demanding great production values anyway.

Don't get me wrong: it's great that a camera as cheap and flexible (and hackable!) as the GH2 can produce images which hold up well for the big screen. But in the low-budget realm, camera and shooting format -- 35mm, 16mm, DV, HD, Hi8 -- has almost no correlation to whether a project succeeds or not. It must also be said that in the low-budget realm, the overall quality of the material often has little to do with success either, but that's another matter....

@pinger007 and his observations about the shoot out tonight in Chicago are right on. Also, @Vitaliy_Kiselev your stance on the shootouts is more or less the conclusion reached during the discussion portion of the shootout. Everyone agreed that all the cameras, when used by talented individuals, could produce amazing images. Obviously some have workflow advantages etc, but the emphasis is now on the skill of the creators in terms of cinematography and operation and story. Because so many people can make beautiful images, the camera is no longer a limiting factor. Even the half/snobbish guy in front of Ping and I who couldn't stop talking about how he owns an Epic, made the point that people can no longer make the excuse that they don't have the right equipment to create worthy projects because they don't have access to high-end gear (he also made some weird point about DSLR footage having a longer workflow than his red, and being able to get more shots in a day with a Red and his crew? Yea, kinda ignored that)

Overall though, lots of very knowledgeable people, and very little discussion concerning pixel peeping etc. Although I do feel bad for one of the more vocal DPs who uses a 7D, which the test wasn't kind to. The graded iPhone 4 footage looked better than the 7D :-/

@svart Still sounds like it could be a playback issue. Did you try playing the section back in your NLE using "Build Dynamic RAM Preview" or something similar? If you still get the issue with that, then it might be in the file.

Other than that, remember that we are dealing with files that have very high bitrates (considering the codec used) and that most media players can choke on an awful lot of systems trying to play them back.

@aksel @pinger007 Sounds like the lighting team working with the GH2 did a very good job of playing to the cameras strengths. They should be applauded for their skill. If the dynamic range is handled properly, and the color doesn't suffer excessively from the banding issues, etc. then the GH2 can deliver performance far outside the price class. One of the nice things about shooting with a camera like the Scarlet or Epic (and I would guess with the F65 and maybe some others) is that you have a wider choice of lighting options that will work well.

I got some shots with the Scarlet last week that the GH2 could not get. So when I came back with the GH2 for additional shots later that week, did I try to push the GH2 to do what it could not? No, I played to it's strengths instead: shot similar things really underexposed to get silhouttes or really overexposed to get an ethereal and difficult to place look, things like that. And it looked fantastic. If I had tried to shoot the same shots for the music video with the GH2, they would have gone unused because the Scarlet did it better. So it all depends on what you have access to and what you are shooting.

I've said it before: my perspective is coming from a lot of landscape photography and timelapse, working in situations where you cannot relight the scene. In those situations, the GH2 keeps up resolution for Full HD delivery very well, but the 12 to 14 stop dynamic range of some of the other cameras really improves things in a big way.

Just to be clear: I love shooting with the GH2 and I am happy to do just about any project with it. There are just some things that work a lot better with the more expensive cameras when the budget can support them. If it doesn't, I modify the shots slightly to make the most of them with a GH2.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev Well said V.K work on your skill only that counts, at the end of the day a piece of gear is a piece of gear. Nothing can take away your cinematography skills, one more area I think people ignore is lighting that is key!!! can't stress that enough. I'm really proud & happy on how the GH2 performed, now it's time to practice. By the way I will attending the BOSTON Screening anybody going?

Cool.

Wasn't it crazy how well the gh2 stood up to the big boys!? Some folks at my screening were in denial - how can a little $600 camera surpass a camera costing 100x more!? I am proud to be a gh2 owner.

I was with another personal view member, phillaagony, at the shootout. Great guy! Just met him tonight. All of us chicago guys should get together sometime and talk shop. Shoot me a message and we'll exchange info...

:-)

Hi @pinger007, were you in the 5:30 or 7:30?